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CaptainKirk first encountered Gary Seven on twentieth-centuryEarth. Now Seven, a time-traveling operative for unknown alien forces, makes a surprise visit to the USS Enterprise. Kirk is on an urgent mission to bring relief to a disaster-ravaged planet, but Seven has an agenda of his own -- and he's not above hijacking the Starship Enterprise and sending it on a perilous journey deep into the heart of the Romulan Empire.

Kirk must dare to trust Gary Seven once again, as he confronts the possibility that the enigmatic stranger may bring death and destruction to Kirk's own era.

Romulan Commander Dellas of the Tal Shiar witnesses the failed assassination attempt on the Federation president at the Khitomer conference, then herself assassinates Captain Spock.

1969

After ensuring the success of the Apollo 11 moon landing, Gary Seven is alerted to a disruption of the timeline. He, Isis, and Roberta Lincoln transport themselves through time and space to 2269, the apparent divergence point, aboard the Enterprise.

2269
Stardate 6021.4

The Enterprise, en route to deal with an environmental disaster threatening the Federation colony on Duwamish, intercepts Seven's transporter beam. He insists on Kirk's help in carrying out a vital mission within Romulan space, though he refuses to share any of the details. When Kirk refuses, Seven imbalances the starship's warp engines, creating a wormhole that delivers the vessel deep within the Empire. The ship soon comes under attack by a squadron led by Commander Motak of the Gladiator, and is forced to flee deeper into Romulan space. Sensors detect an uninhabited star system that apparently contains a cloaked planet and Kirk decides to investigate, fearing a secret Romulan base and an incredible Romulan technological advance. The Enterprise hides from the Gladiator within the cloaking field while Kirk, Sulu, and Chekov beam to the surface. Seven escapes from the brig and invites himself on the landing party. Kirk tries to have him returned to the Enterprise, but a force field blocks transporters and communications.

Seven finally shares minimal details of his mission—his contemporary in this area and region, Supervisor 146 (aka Septos), has been discovered and captured by Romulan forces, and plan to use their newfound advanced technology to alter the timeline. The team meets up with Septos' pet/partner, a large sentient feline named Osiris. While Sulu and Chekov create a diversion, Kirk, Seven, and Osiris slip inside the captured base, and Septos escapes from Dellas' intensive interrogation and reach the control center.

In orbit, Spock prepares to abandon the landing party and escape Romulan territory to safeguard the ship and crew, but Roberta uses her superior technology to seize control of the ship. Spock conducts a mind-meld so that both sides can trust each other and learns of his own future assassination, though he convinces Roberta to return control of the ship. The Enterprise departs the cloaking field, drawing the Gladiator away from the planet and ultimately disabling the battlecruiser by tying Roberta's interface cube into a torpedo's sensors. The ship then returns to the planet to rescue the landing party.

Kirk, Seven, and Osiris find Septos just as Dellas beams in and murders him, then Osiris. A firefight ensues, but Dellas wins out by overloading her disruptor and stunning them all. The paranoid Dellas sends her troops away, guarding Kirk and Seven herself until using the transporter to travel to 2293 to kill Spock. Seven sets the base's autodestruct before following her into the future, leaving Kirk to hold off the rest of the Romulan troops. He narrowly succeeds and returns to 2269 moments before the explosion, but Isis, aboard the Enterprise, reconfigures the transporter to rescue everyone from the planet. The base is destroyed, keeping its advanced technology out of Romulan hands, and Spock mind-melds with Dellas and her technologist, Vithrok, to remove all knowledge of the same. Seven repeats his wormhole trick to deliver the Enterprise to Duwamish several days in the past, allowing the crew to complete their vital mission, before returning himself, Isis, and Roberta to 20th century Earth.

Roberta Lincoln tells Spock that he reminds her of an extraterrestrial from the science fiction film The Brain Eaters. This is a reference to a real life 1958 film in which Leonard Nimoy made a brief appearance. However, he did not play an alien in the film but a human character named Professor Cole.

After the Enterprise was force through a wormhole, Kirk worried that the distance to return could take 75 years. He even thought it could make quite an adventure. This was in reference to Star Trek: Voyager.

This novel contains references to other fictional characters normally considered apart from the Star Trek universe, with the implication that they exist as real people. Although some may be references to TV series and films Roberta Lincoln had seen, others are less ambiguous:

The Avengers: Spock says that Seven and Lincoln contributed to "the defeat of the so-called 'cybernauts' in conjunction with a pair of British intelligence operatives". Lincoln thinks to herself, "I bet Mrs. Peel never has to go poking around under the furniture."

Kolchak: The Night Stalker and The Questor Tapes: Roberta tells Spock, "There was this other times while we were teamed up with this wise guy reporter from Chicago, when Seven actually sneaked in and out of the Pentagon with the top secret plans for a new type of robot soldier. The Quasar Tapes, or something like that."

James Bond and Mission: Impossible: Roberta tells Kirk that Gary Seven "...works on a strictly need-to-know basis, you know? James Bond style. For your eyes only and all that. This tape will self-destruct in five seconds..."

The Prisoner: "All this covert infiltration reminded [Seven] of that time he and Isis had attempted to liberate a former British intelligence agent from the artificial village where he was being held captive as part of an elaborate psychological conditioning experiment. That mission had ended badly, he remembered, primarily because he had underestimated the forces arrayed against them."

The Andromeda Strain: Spock says that Seven and Lincoln contributed to "the destruction of fourteen deadly biological weapons, including one spaceborn virus".

↑Vejvoda, Jim and Phil Pirrello. "Star Trek: The Original Series - Season 2 Review." IGN.com, [1]

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